Vignettes
by Hermione W. Cullen
Summary: A series of poems about people or things in the SANDMAN universe. Most are about the Endless.
1. Ode to the King of Dreams

_A/N: This story is pretty straightforward. Each chapter is a poem dealing with a person or concept in THE SANDMAN. The first is my shameless love poem to Morpheus…_

**Ode to the King of Dreams**

He presides

Over a land of stories

Where fairy dust rides on the breeze of fancy

And the depths of horror stretch ever downward

I wonder

If he himself has a story

This stark, this mystical man with the eyes of night

The pale face, the immaculate expression, the hair like silk-covered wire

He has

Taken so many forms

The tribal lord the glaring fox the nineteenth-century dandy

The cat with the fiery gaze and fur that rippled like strings of midnight beneath the clouds

He lives

Always in the back of my mind

Softly sifting piano fingers touching and shaping

A barrage of half-written stories and half-claimed ideas

He is

Not always good to me

My king, o my beautiful king of dreams

But every moment he creates makes him dearer to me


	2. Right in Front of You

_A/N: Death is a very hard character to write. In truth, only Neil Gaiman can really do it properly. Still, she's a favorite subject of mine. Maybe I'm a masochist._

**Right in Front of You**

Death is staring you in the face

She's more beautiful than you thought

More a sweet thing of twenty

Than a spectre that lurks behind your sweatiest nightmare

Death has eyes like mercury

Silver liquid surrounds the pupils in perfect circles

Swirling and sliding, flowing

A glitter made of shifting shadows

Death is smiling at you

Her paper-white hand is warm as the brightest life

And with the warmth, the twinkling, the reassuring smirk

You feel more whole than you ever have before


	3. Little Sister

_A/N: Delirium is cute. Need I say more?_

Little Sister

Little sister

Oh, how you danced

Oh, how you spun

Your gown

Lightest of blues

Slouched at the shoulder

Your step

Uneven, wild with joy

Left flowers behind

Blue eyes

Clear and solid as the sky

Relieved us from doubt

You were

Beautiful then, little sister

Perfection for the old world

You are

Beautiful now, little sister

Flawed for a changing world


	4. Glass Hearts

_A/N: Oh, Desire. Wherefore art thou such an asshole?_

**Glass Hearts**

What does it take to crumble an empire?

Only one being can hold the answer in its hands.

It poisons this world of ours, sitting

In its fragile tower of sugar-spun glass.

What does it take to dissolve a psyche?

In the shroud of its impish grin

Lies the key to this power

But that magical being deceives merrily

What does it take to create a treasure beyond value?

Perhaps that knowledge lies in the

Murky yet sharply transparent depths of its

Glass heart, that roguish destroyer of worlds.


	5. Destiny's Book

_A/N: This poem gave me a helluva lot of trouble, and I still don't quite like it. Turns out Destiny's a hard guy to write about. No wonder Neil Gaiman's longest Destiny story is nine pages. Well, this poem is never going to be done, so here's the version I stopped at…_

**Destiny's Book**

There, in the cloak, in the mist

There is almost a man

Head bent in concentration

Reading with blind eyes

Almost a person

Almost he hopes

Almost he dreams

Almost feels longing or wisps of insanity

But the myriad plots of that

Age-weathered leather-bound book

Are too great for any man to shoulder

So Destiny, almost human, walks alone.


	6. Rosalita

_A/N: I have what is called a friendcrush on Rose Walker. Meaning, if I had my way we would be bestest buddies. And so, this poem._

**Rosalita**

Hello

I am a heartless

Rose

Multicolored

Daughter of

Desire

Creator

With typewriter

Keys

Waiting

For what once belonged

To me

To be

Handed back, my only

Inheritance


	7. The Artist

_A/N: Gotta love the Ginger of the family._

**The Artist**

-

The painter is poised at his easel

Holding his brush like an instrument of torture

Battle stance, crouched and ready to spring

Shoulders squared and threatening

-

He is hard-muscled and iron-eyed

His skin rough leather

His coarse hair the red

Of every cliché, blood and fire

-

The fearsome figure bears down on the canvas

Strokes it, violently gentle

Smiles cruelly and starts to create

Destruction is now an artist


	8. The Realm of Mirrors

_A/N: This poem is probably my favorite in this series. I don't know why, but I don't hate it like I do everything else I write._

…_you didn't need to know that._

**The Realm of Mirrors**

-

Sit down a moment

Drop your life

Loosen your smile

Let it sink

And despair

-

It won't take long

To give her a moment of pure pleasure

-

She is small and wide

With grey skin and an easy frown

She hooks into you

With an antiseptic sting

-

Let waves of nausea

Overtake your soul

Breathe stinging chill

Put your head

In your hands

-

It won't take long

To give yourself over to her

-

There is someone

Behind that mirror

And watching your loss

Is perfection for her


End file.
